And so the “new era” begins

Peter Moores’ second stint in charge of the England team begins in earnest on Tuesday night with a T20 match at The Oval. The Full Toss will be in attendance, of course, to sample the atmosphere and gauge enthusiasm for the new regime.

Although we won’t be able to read too much into the crowd’s response to Moores’ England, as T20’s at The Oval tend to attract a lot of casual fans who are more familiar with Paul Dowton’s career in The City than his past life as a wicket-keeper, it will be interesting nevertheless – especially as England will field a fairly unimaginative side full of familiar faces (a couple of whom, in this observer’s opinion, are past their sell by date).

My hunch is that Sri Lanka will have more passionate supporters within the ground than England (they were certainly well represented during the Champions Trophy at the same venue) but we’ll see. If things start to go wrong for the home team, I’ll be curious to see whether there is any kind of honeymoon period, or whether the moaning begins right away.

If the weather holds, we expect to see a high scoring game. Both sides have plenty of fire power – we’ll be hoping Hales, Morgan and Buttler find form – but the bowling attacks look vulnerable.

England’s attack in particular could go the distance. It’s probably not an exaggeration to say that nearby buildings could be at risk of structural damage. In fact, it’s hard to think of a more innocuous bowling attack in world cricket at the moment: Bresnan, Woakes and Gurney are all orthodox medium pace bowlers (the kind that have batsmen licking their lips). Meanwhile, Tredwell is massively short of form.

In an era where quirky seamers and mystery spin (aka chuckers) rule the roost in T20 cricket, it’s hard to think of a more inadequate attack than England’s. But don’t blame the selectors, conservatism and an arguably misplaced sense of fair play will probably continue to prevail on our shores.

In an interview with Sky a couple of weeks ago, Ashley Giles addressed this very issue. He said Warwickshire had a young unorthodox mystery spinner on the books a while ago, but he was frequently no-balled and harangued by both the authorities and the opposition. He is now out of cricket.

Elsewhere in the world, most notably in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, such bowlers are revered and tend to take 800 test wickets.

In other news, you might be interested to learn that Jos Buttler and Moeen Ali turned up in London at 3am last night. They were playing for their counties yesterday and had to endure a horrific late night drive to join up with the squad in time for today’s preparations.

Am I the only one who finds it remarkable that such logistical nightmares still occur? There’s no way I’d recommend driving at that time of night – especially after a game of cricket. What’s more, poor Jos and Moeen will be completely knackered today. It’s hardly the best way to prepare for an international fixture – even if it’s a mere T20.

James Morgan

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